HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF BARBARY.

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CHAPTER V.

BARBARY.-Derivation of its Name.---Soil, and Climate.-Short View of its general History, and of ALGIERS in particular.---Geographical Description. ---Monuments and Remains of Antiquity.-The Capital described.

THAT part of northern Africa called Barbary, has, like most other countries, furnished the learned with a controversy about the origin of its name: some deriving it from the Arabic word Ber, which signifies a desert; but this cannot surely apply to countries so rich and fertile. Others have fancied they could trace the appellation to a nearly similar sound with the above, meaning a man who speaks through his teeth. This is equally fallacious, not answering, in any way, to the present dialect of the Moors. In search of another derivative, the Romans are said to have styled it Barbary, from the ferocious character of its inhabitants; but, in addition to there being no historical record of this kind, a little reflection will show the improbability of such a significant epithet applying to a country which was civilized almost as early as their own; and containing, in after times, by far the finest colonies they possessed. Its extreme affinity to the modern inhabitants of this extensive region, proves very strongly, that the word Barbary is of much more recent invention than the time of the Romans. The most generally received opinion of the present day, traces it to Bereber, the country of shepherds; while some, however, deduce it from Berberi, people inhabiting near a strait. Be this as it may, no country on earth is more highly favoured by nature: and, next to Egypt, it was, while under the Roman yoke, justly regarded as the richest, and most productive of

102

CLIMATE AND SITUATION.

its provinces, and the granary of the state. Some writers honored this coast with the flattering title of soul of the republic, and jewel of the empire. It was also considered the very first refinement in the luxury of those days, to possess a villa or estate on this smiling region.*

The climate is soft and salubrious: and the seasons follow each other in the gentlest succession; in autumn the heats are excessive, but generally tempered by northerly winds. There are very few diseases peculiar to Barbary; it has not been visited by the plague for a period of twenty-five years, though raging with so much violence in the neighbouring island of Malta, and farther on at Gibralter. It is far from being indigenous to this country, and no greater proof could be adduced of its extreme salubrity, than that of having escaped epidemic disorders for so long a time, without the many and often ineffectual precautions adopted for their prevention in more civilized countries. What, therefore, might not be expected in Barbary, if only a little care was taken, to avoid the introduction of disease?

This immense coast, extending from the Atlantic ocean to Alexandria in Egypt, more than two thousand miles, and from north to south nearly five hundred in some parts, comprehends the ancient Mauritania, Numidia and Lybia; the country of the Massili, Getuli, and Garamantes. All these states, which attained a flourishing condition under independent governments, were successively conquered by the Roman arms, and continued to share the various fortunes of the empire until the reign of Valentinian III. A. D. 428. when Count Boniface, disgusted by

* What a striking and melancholy contrast to the above, is exhibited by the following extract, representing the state of Africa after the invasion of the Vandals: "Many of the most flourishing and populous cities with which it was filled, were so entirely ruined, that no vestiges remained to point out where they were situated. That fertile territory which sustained the Roman empire, still lies in a great measure uncultivated; and that province which Victor Vitensis in his barbarous Latin called speciositas totius terræ florentis, is now the retreat of banditti."-Robertson's Charles V. Vol, I. p. 240.-Ed.